Dude ... No. Just no.
This is straight up just not true.
Lol noWho says that gaming subscription services are the new business model that the gaming market needs?
Services like Spotify also caused record and music shops to go by the wayside though, which resulted in real job displacement. Another user ITT brought it up, can't remember who it was though.
It depends on the definition of "services", here. Steam is technically a "service"; it's a digital storefront providing digital content to the end user. The only major difference between it and GamePass is the money pipeline. With Steam, the platform holder isn't creating a lot of software of their own, and aren't paying devs & pubs to put their content on the platform. The customer pays for each game, rather than a flat subscription rate providing all available games to them in the duration of that subscription, and that money then goes to the publisher of that game minus a 30% cut from Valve.
GamePass is, essentially, a "storefront", except the only thing the customer buys is a subscription to access the storefront whatsoever. That purchased subscription goes 100% to the platform holder who owns that "storefront", who in turn at the very least pays publishers and developers to put their content on the service. The platform holder may also make content of their own for the service.
As long as a A/AA developer can find a publisher or secure funding, there's very little a service like GamePass can offer them that another service like Steam cannot offer them. The big difference is in terms of potential funding or funding reimbursement: with Steam, funding comes either the traditional means (bank loans, publisher funds) or through crowdfunding. Those costs have to be made up through direct sales to the customer. With something like GamePass, the funding either comes from those same means, or from a platform holder like Microsoft paying the cost of development directly. If the funding is still via traditional methods, then MS paying for the game on their service can cover some or all of those costs.
But here's the kicker: even if the money ends up right for either method, one still brings more dependency than the other. With Steam you have a much larger storefront and a much larger service, reaching a wider audience. With GamePass, your total audience reach is going to be a lot smaller (at least for the time being). And the main method for GP growth is going to be much more stressful on MS as a platform holder than Steam growth has been/will be for Valve, since in GP's case it's mainly 1P games that will drive that growth.
Which actually could present a hamper for 3P A/AA games and a few indie devs came out not too long ago voicing their concerns on this.
Well they did launch successfully, but in the case of Halo (and somewhat, tho not as much, FH5) since that's a live-service game, the question is how well does it maintain an active playerbase. And the answer is, it's really struggling to do that in a way comparable to the other big live-service shooters on the market. So launch success for Halo Infinite doesn't mean that much if outside of that, the game's been losing significant momentum.
This doesn't make sense; wouldn't that be $1.025 billion?
I understand. That being said, there ARE other sources out there which provide tracked, accurate numbers for other parts of the industry, and platform holders like Sony & Nintendo do in fact provide hard numbers for aspects of their businesses including game services revenues.
That's where the corroboration comes in: we can take those figures, line them up, see what the relationship between them are, and use that to try filling in missing pieces such as GamePass's own revenue totals. Which, yes, we can't 100% arrive at accurately, but I think we're in a good enough ballpark. If everything in even that article (let alone other industry-wide data tracking sites or even numbers from platform holders directly) were off by wide margins, a lot of people would be out of jobs, credibility, and likely facing criminal charges
..... don't worry; papa Phill is going to protect your feelings.
It's better to ask questions now and put a spotlight on potential issues with these things
At this point, it's not gamepass issue anymore.
This is literally the point with the Game Pass analogy. There is no other choice for the music industry, because people stopped buying. If you remember, the answer to piracy was the iPod, and buying your music in an easy fashion. It was the nature of easy digital access vs the dinosaur that was a CD at the time that caused traditional sales to start plummeting. Spotify didn't come into play until 2006, and even then didn't come to the US until 2011. The whole Napster/limeware thing happened in the late 90s.
As of July 2020, Netflix had 3,781 movies available on its streaming service. / 1,500 original titles
I think you might be misunderstanding. No one is saying games will be Gamepass exclusive, I think people are worried about games being more tailored towards services eventually instead of the full AAA traditional games we get today
Because they have no other option than do it.
good thing MS is not good at managing anything gaming related. Now Sony might make this become a real problem. I really don’t want the gaming future to be subscription based regardless of who dominates it.
Exactly. This is not an MS thing. This is a "this is terrible for the software industry" thing. Just like Apple destroyed the value of mobile software with their race to the bottom on iOS. Just like Spotify/Apple Music has destroyed the value of music to consumers.
I think it will grow beyond niche status, but I don't think it will grow large enough to be sustainable long-term without a significant price increase.
Adapt... whatever it takes.Developers doing tours!
I dunno. I'm not being paid big bucks too brainstorm that. We'll see how folks adapt. Adapt or die.
No. They can't. Not even Sony is doing that. They're going multiplatform. They're releasing games on pc. They're releasing a competitor to game pass. They are NOT doing what they were doing 20 years ago...
most do, sorry cutie pie.
Anyone who thinks it is mere "concern trolling" is probably too young to have seen the downfall of these other industries first-hand.
I own an Xbox, I sub to Game Pass. I can also see problems down the road for the industry as a whole because of Game Pass style sub services. You don't need to turn every issue into a console war.
Not sure you read or listened to the interview. It’s highlighted It’s seductive for consumers, bad for industry.
Care to elaborate? How is Game pass hurting you and if you believe that why would you sub and contribute to the problem?
As a customer how are we affected? Death spiral? How is that even possible from the 3rd place platform holder? I keep hearing MS is inept so I don't think there is anything to worry about at all. I prefer David Jaffe's take.
I already said 40 for a yr gold. The cheapest possible. Unless you know a cheaper way to get it? I have asked you this no?
And don't forget the "roadmaps" and life service aspects to games that don't need it in the first place. Why finish games day one when people buy it day one nonetheless and you can fix it along the way.
It sounds like the same argument people had when MS stated they were entering the console market. We are still waiting for them to either destroy it or go out of business. There is no evidence whatsoever that Game pass is hurting the industry but there is plenty of evidence that consumers are quite happy with the service so far and that's what matters to me because I'm a customer. If the service gets bad it will end. As long as it remains optional and normal retail channels stay open it will continue to be an added benefit to the Xbox ecosystem. Life spiral.
In the same way Halo went GaaS you'll see more MS, Zenimax and ABK big AAA IPs going full GaaS. The next one is Forza Motorsport.
The theory is that it would become hurthul in the case it would become important and would dominate the market as happened with Netflix or Spotify. But as of now GP is a small part of the game subs, and the game subs are a tiny portion of the total gaming market. So in their curent scale, and the one they'll have in a couple years from now it isn't dangerous at all.
So the argument is cheap = good for me. Solid.
Nope the argument is that if you offer consumers a good value people will subscribe.
Sounds like if anyone is concerned that Game pass is going to harm anything the remedy is to offer customers a superior value. It can't dominate if there is a better offer on the free market. Competition is good for the consumer.
Nah, the remedy is publishers and devs not putting their games in subscriptions until they sold all the game units they could, and use subscriptions as a secondary, complementary revenue source instead of as the main one.
Publishers and developers are free to participate in any business deal that is beneficial to their company. No one is forced to add content to Game pass or any other service. You nor anyone else has the right limit how they want to distribute their games. The business will work out the way they want it to.
Free is even better consumer value, hack pay you to take it the best!. Doesn't make it a sound business decision.
I never said Game Pass is hurting me, that's a strawman. Game Pass doesn't "hurt" me any more than a Netflix sub would. The problem is that sub services in other entertainment mediums have demonstrably changed those industries, and it is already changing our current attitude towards buying games.
If the argument is ever not that, then you're in trouble. If boxed sales can't compete they will disappear. No one is going to convince everyone to buy expensive games just to prevent something bad from happening. If thats their only defense then they can just give up now. Its a competition not a charity.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a cigar smoking capitalist with the best of them and are fully versed on the free market and cream rising to the top.
If more gamers choose to jump on the GP train specielly the casual crowd this will def have an impact on Sony business strategy as a whole. Thus it will force Sony to adapt in some way.
Multiplatform = more than one platform. And Sony has changed from just a year ago. Beginning of 2021 Sony only made games for PlayStation. Then they started making games for pc. Then they started making the show for other consoles. Then they acquired bungie and announced those games would be on Xbox.
I saw Blockbuster get decimated during my childhood...but I can care less because now I can click a few buttons on my TV remote and watch any movie or show I want.
